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WHY GOD USED 
D. L. MOODY 

/ j 4 ' j -'a rW. 



R. A. TORREY, D.D. 







































. 









Why God Used D. L. Moody 


/ 



Why God Used 
D. L. Moody 

Jj 

? $ By 

R. A. TORREY, D.D. 

Author of " Hoiv to Bring Men to Christ, etc. 



New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 

C c I 
















Copyright, 1923, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


B\/3T65 

.KlT^ 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 

©C1A7G5028 


-7 1924 , 


Why God Used D. L. Moody 

E IGHTY-SIX years ago (Feb- 
uary 5, 1837) there was born of 
poor parents in a humble farm¬ 
house in Northfield, Massachusetts, a little 
baby who was to become the greatest man, 
as I believe, of his generation or of his 
century—Dwight L. Moody. After our 
great generals, great statesmen, great 
scientists and great men of letters have 
passed away and been forgotten and their 
work and its helpful influence has come to 
an end, the work of D. L. Moody will go 
on and its saving influence continue and 
increase, bringing blessing not only to 
every State in the Union but to every 
nation on earth. Yes, it will continue 
throughout the ages of eternity. 

My subject is “ Why God Used D. L. 
Moody,” and I can think of no subject 
upon which I would rather speak. For 



6 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


I shall not seek to glorify Mr. Moody, but 
the God Who by His grace, His entirely 
unmerited favour, used him so mightily, 
and the Christ Who saved him by His 
atoning death and resurrection life, and 
the Holy Spirit Who lived in him and 
wrought through him and Who alone 
made him the mighty power that he was 
to this world. Furthermore: I hope to 
make it clear that the God Who used D. 
L. Moody in his day is just as ready to 
use you and me, in this day, if we, on our 
part, do what D. L. Moody did, which 
was what made it possible for God to so 
abundantly use him. 

The whole secret of why D. L. Moody 
was such a mightily used man you will 
find in Psalm 62: 11: “ God hath spoken 
once, twice have I heard this, that power 
belongeth unto God.” I am glad it does. 
I am glad that power did not belong to 
D. L. Moody; I am glad that it did not 
belong to Charles G. Finney; I am glad 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 7 


that it did not belong to Martin Luther; 
I am glad that it did not belong to any 
other Christian man whom God has 
greatly used in this world’s history. 
Power belongs to God. If D. L. Moody 
had any power, and he had great power, 
he got it from God. 

But God does not give His power arbi¬ 
trarily. It is true that He gives it to 
whomsoever He will, but He wills to give 
it on certain conditions, which are clearly 
revealed in His Word, and D. L. Moody 
met those conditions and God made him 
the most wonderful preacher of his genera¬ 
tion ; yes, I think the most wonderful man 
of his generation. 

But how was it that D. L. Moody had 
that power of God so wonderfully mani¬ 
fested in his life? Pondering this ques¬ 
tion it seemed to me that there were seven 
things in the life of D. L. Moody that ac¬ 
counted for God’s using him so largely as 
He did. 



8 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


I. A Fully Surrendered Man 

II.IUMUMMW III <1 • 

The first thing that accounts for God s 
using D. L. Moody so mightily was that 
he was a fully surrendered man . Every 
ounce of that two-hundred-and-eighty- 
pound body of his belonged to God; every¬ 
thing he was and everything he had, be¬ 
longed wholly to God. Now, I am not 
saying that Mr. Moody was perfect; he 
was not. If I attempted to, I presume I 
could point out some defects in his char¬ 
acter. It does not occur to me at this 
moment what they were; but I am con¬ 
fident that I could think of some, if I tried 
real hard. I have never yet met a perfect 
man, not one. I have known perfect men 
in the sense in which the Bible commands 
us to be perfect, i. e ., men who are wholly 
God’s, out-and-out for God, fully surren¬ 
dered to God, with no will but God’s will; 
but I have never known a man in whom I 
could not see some defects, some places 
where he might have been improved. No: 






WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 9 


Mr. Moody was not a faultless man. If he 
had any flaws in his character, and he had, 
I presume I was in a position to know 
them better than almost any other man, 
because of my very close association with 
him in the later years of his life; and, 
furthermore, I suppose that in his latter 
days he opened his heart to me more fully 
than to any one else in the world. I think 
he told me some things that he told no one 
else. I presume I knew whatever defects 
there were in his character as well as any¬ 
body. But while I recognized such flaws, 
nevertheless, I know that he was a man 
who belonged wholly to God. 

The first month I was in Chicago, we 

were having a talk about something upon 

which we very widely differed, and Mr. 

Moody turned to me very frankly and 

verv kindly and said in defense of his own 
•/ •/ 

position: “ Torrey, if I believed that God 
wanted me to jump out of that window, I 
would jump.” I believe he would. If he 




10 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


thought God wanted him to do anything 
he would do it. He belonged wholty, un¬ 
reservedly, unqualifiedly, entirely, to God. 

Henry Varley, a very intimate friend 
of Mr. Moody in the earlier days of his 
work, loved to tell how he once said to him: 
“ It remains to be seen what God will do 
with a man who gives himself up wholly to 
Him.” I am told that when Mr. Henry 
Varley said that Mr. Moody said to him¬ 
self: “ Well, I will be that man.” And 
I, for my part, do not think “ it remains to 
be seen ” what God will do with a man who 
gives himself up wholly to Him. I think 
it has been seen already in D. L. Moody. 
If you and I are to be used in our sphere 
as D. L. Moodv was used in his, we must 
put all that we have and all that we are in 
the hands of God, for Him to use as He 
will, to send us where He will, for God to 
do with us what He will, and we, on our 
part, to do everything God bids us do. 
There are thousands and tens of thousands 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 11 


of men and women in Christian work, bril¬ 
liant men and women, rarely gifted men 
and women, men and women who are mak¬ 
ing great sacrifices, men and women who 
have put all conscious sin out of their lives, 
yet who, nevertheless, have stopped short 
of absolute surrender to God, and there¬ 
fore have stopped short of fullness of 
power. But Mr. Moody did not stop 
short of absolute surrender to God; he was 
a wholly surrendered man, and if you and 
I are to be used, you and I must be wholly 
surrendered men and women. 

II. A Man of Prayer 

The second secret of the great power 
exhibited in Mr. Moody’s life was that 
Mr. Moody was in the deepest and most 
meaningful sense a man of prayer. People 
oftentimes say to me: “ Well, I went many 
miles to see and to hear D. L. Moody and 
he certainly was a wonderful preacher.” 
Yes, D. L. Moody certainly was a wonder- 



12 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


ful preacher; taking it all in all, the most 
wonderful preacher I have ever heard, and 
it was a great privilege to hear him preach 
as he alone could preach; but out of a very 
intimate acquaintance with him I wish to 
testify that he was a far greater pray-er 
than he was preacher. Time and time 
again, he was confronted by obstacles that 
seemed insurmountable, but he always 
knew the way to surmount and to over¬ 
come all difficulties. He knew the way to 
bring to pass anything that needed to be 
brought to pass. He knew and believed 
in the deepest depths of his soul that 
“ nothing was too hard for the Lord ” and 
that prayer could do anything that God 
could do. 

Oftentimes Mr. Moody would write me 
when he was about to undertake some new 
work, saying: “ I am beginning work in 
such and such a place on such and such 
a day; I wish you would get the students 
together for a day of fasting and prayer,” 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 13 


and often I have taken those letters and 
read them to the students in the lecture 
room and said: “Mr. Moody wants us 
to have a day of fasting and prayer, first 
for God’s blessing on our own souls and 
work, and then for God’s blessing on him 
and his work.” Often we were gathered 
in the lecture room far into the night—• 
sometimes till one, two, three, four or 
even five o’clock in the morning, crying to 
God, just because Mr. Moody urged us 
to wait upon God until we received His 
blessing. How many men and women I 
have known whose lives and characters 
have been transformed by those nights of 
prayer and who have wrought mighty 
things in many lands because of those 
nights of prayer! 

One day Mr. Moody drove up to my 
house at Northfield and said: “ Torrey, I 
want you to take a ride with me.” 1 got 
into the carriage and we drove out towards 
Lover’s Lane, talking about some great 



14 WHY GOD USED D. L MOODY 


and unexpected difficulties that had arisen 
in regard to the work in Northfield and 
Chicago, and in connection with other 
work that was very dear to him. As we 
drove along, some black storm-clouds lay 
ahead of us, and then suddenly, as we were 
talking, it began to rain. He drove the 
horse into a shed near the entrance to 
Lover’s Lane to shelter the horse, and 
then laid the reins upon the dashboard and 
said: “ Torrey, pray; ” and then, as best 
I could, I prayed, while he in his heart 
joined me in prayer. And when my voice 
was silent he began to pray. Oh, I wish 
you could have heard that prayer! I shall 
never forget it, so simple, so trustful, so 
definite and so direct and so mighty. When 
the storm was over and we drove back to 
town, the obstacles had been surmounted, 
and the work of the schools, and other 
work that was threatened, went on as it 
had never gone on before, and it has gone 
on until this day. As we drove back, Mr. 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 15 


Moody said to me: “ Torrey, we will let 
the other men do the talking and the 
criticizing, and we will stick to the work 
that God has given us to do, and let Him 
take care of the difficulties and answer the 
criticisms.” 

On one occasion Mr. Moody said to me 
in Chicago: “I have just found, to my 
surprise, that we are twenty thousand dol¬ 
lars behind in our finances for the work 
here and in Northfield, and we must have 
that twenty thousand dollars, and I am 
going to get it by prayer.” He did not 
tell a soul who had the ability to give a 
penny of the twenty thousand dollars 
deficit, but looked right to God and said: 
“ I need twenty thousand dollars for my 
work; send me that money in such a way 
that I will know it comes straight from 
Thee.” And God heard that prayer. 
The money came in such a way that it was 
clear that it came from God, in direct 
answer to prayer. Yes, D. L. Moody 



16 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


was a man who believed in the God Who 
answers prayer, and not only believed in 
Him in a theoretical way but believed in 
Him in a practical way. He was a man 
who met every difficulty that stood in his 
way—by prayer. Everything he under¬ 
took was backed up by prayer, and in 
everything, his ultimate dependence was 
upon God. 

III. A Deep and Practical Student 

of the Bible 

The third secret of Mr. Moody’s power, 
or the third reason whv God used D. L. 
Moody, was because he was a deep and 
practical student of the Word of God. 
Nowadays it is often said of D. L. 
Moody that he was not a student. I wish 
to say that he was a student; most em¬ 
phatically he was a student. He was not 
a student of psychology, he was not a 
student of anthropology—I am very sure 
he would not have known what that word 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 17 


meant—he was not a student of biology, 
he was not a student of philosophy, he was 
not even a student of theology, in the 
technical sense of the term, but he was a 
student, a profound and practical student 
of the one Book that is more worth study¬ 
ing than all other books in the world put 
together; he was a student of the Bible. 
Every day of his life, I have reason for 
believing, he arose very early in the morn¬ 
ing to study the Word of God, way down 
to the close of his life. Mr. Moody used 
to rise about four o’clock in the morning 
to study the Bible. He would say to me: 
“If I am going to get in any study, I 
have got to get up before the other folks 
get up,” and he would shut himself up in 
a remote room in his house, alone with his 
God and his Bible. 

I shall never forget the first night I 
spent in his home. He had invited me to 
take the superintendency of the Bible In¬ 
stitute and I had already begun my work, 



18 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


was on my way to some city in the East 
to preside at the International Christian 
Workers’ Convention. He wrote me 
saying: “ Just as soon as the Convention 
is over, come up to Northfield.” He 
learned when I was likely to arrive and 
drove over to South Vernon to meet me. 
That night he had all the teachers from 
the Mount Hermon School and from the 
Northfield Seminary come together at the 
house to meet me, and to talk over the 
problems of the two Schools. We talked 
together far on into the night, and then, 
after the principals and teachers of the 
Schools had gone home, Mr. Moody and I 
talked together about the problems a while 
longer. It was very late when I got to 
bed that night, but very early the next 
morning, about five o’clock, I heard a 
gentle tap on my door. Then I heard Mr. 
Moody’s voice whispering: “ Torre}^, are 
you up?” I happened to be; I do not 
always get up at that early hour, but I 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 19 


happened to be up that particular morn¬ 
ing. He said: “ I want you to go some¬ 
where with me,” and I went down with 
him. Then I found out that he had al¬ 
ready been up an hour or two in his room 
studying the Word of God. 

Oh, you may talk about power; but, if 
you neglect the one Book that God has 
given you as the one instrument through 
which He imparts and exercises His 
power, you will not have it. Y r ou may 
read many books and go to many conven¬ 
tions and you may have your all-night 
prayer meetings to pray for the power of 
the Holy Ghost, but unless you keep in 
constant and close association with the one 
book, the Bible, you will not have power. 
And if you ever had power, you will not 
maintain it except by the daily, earnest, 
intense study of that Book. Ninety-nine 
Christians in every hundred are merely 
playing at Bible study; and therefore 
ninety-nine Christians in every hundred 



20 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


are mere weaklings , when they might be 
giants , both in their Christian life and in 
their service . 

It was largely because of his thorough 
knowledge of the Bible, and his practical 
knowledge of the Bible, that Mr. Moody 
drew such immense crowds. On “ Chicago 
Day,” in October 1893, none of the 
theatres of Chicago dared to open because 
it was expected that everybody in Chi¬ 
cago would go on that day to the World's 
Fair, and, in point of fact, something like 
four hundred thousand people did pass 
through the gates of the Fair that day. 
Everybody in Chicago was expected to be 
at that end of the city on that day. But 
Mr. Moody said to me: “ Torrey, engage 
the Central Music Hall and announce 
meetings from nine o’clock in the morning 
till six o’clock at night.” “ Why,” I re¬ 
plied, “ Mr. Moody, nobody will be at this 
end of Chicago on that day; not even the 
theatres dare to open; everybody is going 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 21 


down to Jackson Park to the Fair; we can¬ 
not get anybody out on this day.” Mr. 
Moody replied: “ You do as you are told,” 
and I did as I was told, and engaged the 
Central Music Hall for continuous meet¬ 
ings from nine o’clock in the morning till 
six o’clock at night. But I did it with a 
heavy heart; I thought there would be 
poor audiences. I was on the program at 
noon that day. Being very busy in my 
office about the details of the campaign, I 
did not reach the Central Music Hall till 
almost noon. I thought I would have no 
trouble in getting in. But when I got 
almost to the Hall I found to my amaze¬ 
ment that not only was it packed but the 
vestibule was packed and the steps were 
packed, and there was no getting any¬ 
where near the door; and if I had not gone 
round and climbed in a back window they 
would have lost their speaker for that 
hour. But that would not have been of 
much importance, for the crowds had not 



22 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


gathered to hear me; it was the magic of 
Mr. Moody’s name that had drawn them. 
And why did they long to hear Mr. 
Moody? Because they knew that while 
he was not versed in many of the philos¬ 
ophies and fads and fancies of the day, 
that he did know the one Book that this 
old world most longs to know—the Bible. 

I shall never forget Moody’s last visit 
to Chicago. The ministers of Chicago 
had sent me to Cincinnati to invite him to 
come to Chicago and hold a meeting. In 
response to the invitation, Mr. Moody 
said to me: “If you will hire the Audi¬ 
torium for week-day mornings and after¬ 
noons and have meetings at ten in the 
morning and three in the afternoon, I will 
go.” I replied: “ Mr. Moody, you know 
what a busy city Chicago is, and how im¬ 
possible it is for business men to get out at 
ten o’clock in the morning and three in the 
afternoon on working days. Will you 
not hold evening meetings and meetings 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 23 


on Sunday? ” “ No,” he replied, “ I am 

afraid if I did, I would interfere with the 
regular work of the churches.” 

I went back to Chicago and engaged the 
Auditorium, which at that time was the 
building having the largest seating capac¬ 
ity of any building in the city, seating in 
those days about seven thousand people, 
and announced week-day meetings, with 
Mr. Moody as the speaker, at ten o’clock 
in the mornings and three o’clock in the 
afternoons. At once protests began to 
pour in upon me. One of them came from 
Marshall Field, at that time the business 
king of Chicago. “ Mr. Torrey,” Mr. 
Field wrote, “ we business men of Chicago 
wish to hear Mr. Moody and you know 
perfectly well how impossible it is for us 
to get out at ten o’clock in the morning 
and three o’clock in the afternoon; have 
evening meetings.” I received many let¬ 
ters of a similar purport and wrote to Mr. 
Moody urging him to give us evening 



24 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


meetings. But Mr. Moody simply re¬ 
plied: “ You do as you are told,” and I did 
as I was told; that is the way I kept my 
job. 

On the first morning of the meetings I 
went down to the Auditorium about half 
an hour before the appointed time, but I 
went with much fear and apprehension; 
I thought the Auditorium would be no¬ 
where nearly full. When I reached there, 
to my amazement I found a queue of 
people four abreast extending from the 
Congress Street entrance to Wabash 
Avenue, then a block north on Wabash 
Avenue, then a break to let traffic through, 
and then another block, and so on. I 
went in through the back door, and there 
were many clamoring for entrance there. 
When the doors were opened at the ap¬ 
pointed time, we had a cordon of twenty 
policemen to keep back the crowd, but the 
crowd was so great that it swept the 
cordon of policemen off their feet and 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 25 


packed eight thousand people into the 
building before we could get the doors 
shut. And I think there were as many 
left on the outside as there were in the 
building. I do not think that any one else 
in the world could have drawn such a 
crowd at such a time. 

Why? Because though Mr. Moody 
knew little about science, or philosophy, 
or literature, in general, he did know the 
one Book that this old world is perishing 
to know and longing to know, and this old 
world will flock to hear men who know 
the Bible and preach the Bible as they 
will flock to hear nothing else on earth. 

During all the months of the World’s 
Fair in Chicago, no one could draw such 
crowds as Mr. Moody. Judging by the 
papers, one would have thought that the 
great religious event in Chicago at that 
time was the World’s Congress of Relig¬ 
ions. One very gifted man of letters in 
the East was invited to speak at this Con- 



26 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


gress. He saw in this invitation the op¬ 
portunity of his life, and prepared his 
paper, the exact title of which I do not now 
recall, but it was something along the line 
of “ New Light on the Old Doctrines.” 
He prepared the paper with great care, 
and then sent it around to his most trusted 
and gifted friends for criticisms. These 
men sent it back to him with such emenda¬ 
tions as they had to suggest. Then he re¬ 
wrote the paper, incorporating as many of 
the suggestions and criticisms as seemed 
wise. Then he sent it around for further 
criticisms. Then he wrote the paper a 
third time, and had it, as he trusted, per¬ 
fect. He went on to Chicago to meet this 
coveted opportunity of speaking at the 
World’s Congress of Religions. It was 
at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning 
(if I remember correctly) that he was to 
speak. He stood outside the door of the 
platform waiting for the great moment 
to arrive, and as the clock struck eleven 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 27 


walked on to the platform to face a mag¬ 
nificent audience of eleven women and two 
men! But there was not a building any¬ 
where in Chicago that would accommodate 
the very same day the crowds that would 
flock to hear Mr. Moody at any hour of 
the day or night. Oh men and women, 
if you wish to get an audience and wish to 
do that audience some good after you get 
them, study, study, study the one Book, 
and preach, preach, preach the one Book, 
and teach, teach, teach the one Book, the 
Bible, the only Book that contains God’s 
Word, and the only Book that has power 
to gather, and hold, and bless the crowds 
for any great length of time. 

IV. A Humble Man 
The fourth reason why God continu¬ 
ously, through so many years, used D. L. 
Moody was because he was a humble man . 
I think D. L. Moody was the humblest 
man I ever knew in all my life. He loved 



28 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


to quote the words of another: “ Faith gets 
the most, love works the most, but humility 
keeps the most ” He himself had the 
humility that keeps everything it gets. As 
I have already said, he was the most hum¬ 
ble man I ever knew, i. e, y the most humble 
man when we bear in mind the great 
things he did, and the praise that was 
lavished upon him. Oh, how he loved to 
put himself in the background and put 
other men in the foreground. How often 
he would stand on a platform with some 
of us little fellows seated behind him and 
as he spake he w T ould say: “ There are 
better men coming after me.” As he said 
it, he would point back over his shoulder 
with his thumb to the “ little fellows.” I 
do not know how he could believe it, but 
he reallv did believe that the others that 
were coming after him were really better 
than he was. He made no pretense to a 
humility he did not possess. In his heart 
of hearts he constantly underestimated 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 29 


himself, and overestimated others. He 
really believed that God would use other 
men in a larger measure than he had been 
used. 

Mr. Moody loved to keep himself in 
the background. At his conventions at 
Northfield, or anywhere else, he would 
push the other men to the front and, if he 
could, have them do all the preaching— 
McGregor, Campbell Morgan, Andrew 
Murray, and the rest of them. The only 
way we could get him to take any part in 
the program was to get up in the conven¬ 
tion and move that we hear D. L. Moody 
at the next meeting. He continually put 
himself out of sight. 

Oh, how many a man has been full of 
promise and God has used him, and then 
the man thought that he was the whole 
thing and God was compelled to set him 
aside! I believe more promising workers 
have gone on the rocks through self- 
sufficiency and self-esteem than through 



30 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


any other cause. I can look back for 
forty years, or more, and think of many 
men who are now wrecks or derelicts 
who at one time the world thought were 
going to be something great. But they 
have disappeared entirely from the public 
view. Why? Because of over estima¬ 
tion of self. Oh, the men and women who 
have been put aside because they began to 
think that they were somebody, that they 
were “ it,” and therefore God was com¬ 
pelled to set them aside. 

I remember a man with whom I was 
closely associated in a great movement in 
this country. We were having a most 
successful convention in Buffalo, and he 
was greatly elated. As we walked down 
the street together to one of the meetings 
one day, he said to me: “ Torrey, you and 
I are the most important men in Christian 
work in this country” (or words to that 
effect). I replied: “ John, I am sorry to 
hear you say that; for as I read my Bible I 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 31 


find man after man who had accomplished 
great things whom God had to set aside 
because of his sense of his own impor¬ 
tance.” And God set that man aside also 
from that time. I think he is still living, 
but no one ever hears of him, and has not 
heard of him for years. 

God used D. L. Moody, I think, beyond 
any man of his day, but it made no dif¬ 
ference how much God used him, he never 
was puffed up. One day, speaking to me 
of a great New York preacher, now dead, 
Mr. Moody said: “ He once did a very 
foolish thing, the most foolish thing that 
I ever knew a man, ordinarily so wise as 
he was, to do. He came up to me at the 
close of a little talk I had given and said: 
‘ Young man, you have made a great ad¬ 
dress to-night.’ ” Then Mr. Moody con¬ 
tinued: “ How foolish of him to have said 
that; it almost turned my head.” But, 
thank God, it did not turn his head, and 
even when pretty much all the ministers in 



32 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


England, Scotland and Ireland, and many 
of the English bishops were ready to fol¬ 
low D. L. Moody wherever he led, even 
then it never turned his head one bit. He 
would get down on his face before God, 
knowing he was human, and ask God to 
empty him of all self-sufficiency. And 
God did. 

Oh men and women! especially young 
men and young women, perhaps God is 
beginning to use you; very likely people 
are saying: “ What a wonderful gift he 
has as a Bible teacher, what power he has 
as a preacher, for such a young man!” 
Listen: get down upon your face before 
God. I believe here lies one of the most 
dangerous snares of the devil. When the 
devil cannot discourage a man, he ap¬ 
proaches him on another tack, which he 
knows is far worse in its results; he puffs 
him up by whispering in his ear: “ You are 
the leading evangelist of the day. You 
are the man who will sweep everything be- 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 33 


fore you., You are the coming man. 
You are the D. L. Moody of the day/’ 
and if you listen to him, he will ruin you. 
The entire shore of the history of Chris¬ 
tian workers is strewn with the wrecks of 
gallant vessels that were full of promise 
a few years ago, but these men became 
puffed up and were driven on the rocks by 
the wild winds of their own raging self¬ 
esteem. 

/ 

V. His Entire Freedom From the 

Love oe Money 

The fifth secret of D. L. Moody’s con¬ 
tinual power and usefulness was his 
entire freedom from the love of money . 
Mr. Moody might have been a wealthy 
man, but monev had no charms for him. 
He loved to gather money for God’s work; 
he refused to accumulate money for him¬ 
self. He told me during the World’s 
Fair that if he had taken, for himself, the 
royalties on the hymn books which he had 



34 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


published, they would have amounted, at 
that time, to a million dollars. But Mr. 
Moody refused to touch the money. He 
had a perfect right to take it, for he was 
responsible for the publication of the 
books, and it was his money that went into 
the publication of the first of them. Mr. 
Sankey had some hymns that he had taken 
with him to England and he wished to 
have them published. He went to a pub¬ 
lisher (I think Morgan & Scott) and they 
declined to publish them, because, as they 
said, Philip Phillips had recently been over 
and published a hymn book and it had not 
done well. However, Mr. Moody had a 
little money and he said that he would put 
it into the publication of these hymns in 
cheap form and he did. The hymns had 
a most remarkable and unexpected sale; 
they were then published in book form and 
large profits accrued. The financial re¬ 
sults were offered to Mr. Moody, but he 
refused to touch them. “ But,” it was 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 35 


urged on him, “ the money belongs to 
you,” but he would not touch it. Mr. 
Fleming H. Revell was at the time treas¬ 
urer of the Chicago Avenue Church, com¬ 
monly known as the Moody Tabernacle. 
Only the basement of this new church 
building had been completed, funds having 
been exhausted. Hearing of the hymn- 
book situation Mr. Revell suggested, in a 
letter to friends in London, that the money 
be given for completion of this building, 
and it was. Afterwards, so much money 
came in that it was given, by the committee 
into whose hands Mr. Moody put the mat¬ 
ter, to various Christian enterprises. 

In a certain city to which Mr. Moody 
went in the latter years of his life, and 
where I went with him, it was publicly 
announced that Mr. Moody would accept 
no money whatever for his services. Now, 
in point of fact, Mr. Moody was depend¬ 
ent, in a measure, upon what was given 
him at various services, but when this an- 



36 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


nouncement was made, Mr. Moody said 
nothing, and left that city without a 
penny’s compensation for the hard work 
he did there and, I think, paid his own 
hotel bill. And yet a minister in that very 
city came out with an article in a paper, 
which I read, in which he told a fairy tale 
of the financial demands that Mr. Moody 
made upon them, which story I knew per¬ 
sonally to be absolutely untrue. Millions 
of dollars passed into Mr. Moody’s hands, 
but they passed through ; they did not stick 
to his fingers. 

This is the point at which many an 
evangelist makes shipwreck, and his great 
work comes to an untimely end. The love 
of money on the part of some evangelists 
has done more to discredit evangelistic 
work in our day, and to lay many an 
evangelist on the shelf, than almost any 
other cause. While I was away on my 
recent tour I was told by one of the most 
reliable ministers in one of our eastern 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 37 


cities of a campaign conducted by one who 
has been greatly used in the past. (Do 
not imagine, for a moment, that I am 
speaking of Billy Sunday, for I am 
not; this same minister spoke in the highest 
terms of Mr. Sunday and of a campaign 
which he conducted in a city where this 
minister was a pastor.) This evangelist 
of whom I now speak came to a city for a 
united evangelistic campaign and was sup¬ 
ported by fifty-three churches. The min¬ 
ister who told me about the matter was 
himself chairman of the Finance Commit¬ 
tee. The evangelist showed such a long¬ 
ing for money and so deliberately violated 
the agreement he had made before coming 

i 

to the city and so insisted upon money 
being gathered for him in other ways than 
he had himself prescribed in the original 
contract, that this minister threatened to 
resign from the Finance Committee. He 
was however persuaded to remain to avoid 
a scandal. “As the total result of the 



38 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


three weeks’ campaign there were only 
twenty-four clear decisions/’ said my 
friend, “ and after it was over the minis¬ 
ters got together and by a vote with 
but one dissenting voice, they agreed to 
send a letter to this evangelist telling him 
frankly that they were done with him and 
with his methods of evangelism forever, 
and that the}^ felt it their duty to warn 
other cities against him and his methods 
and the results of his work.” Let us lay 
the lesson to our hearts and take warning 
in time. 

VI. His Consuming Passion for the 
Salvation of the Lost 

The sixth reason why God used D. L. 
Moody was because of his consuming 
passion for the salvation of the lost. Mr. 
Moody made the resolution, shortly after 
he, himself, was saved, that he would never 
let twenty-four hours pass over his head 
without speaking to at least one person 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 39 


about his soul. His was a very busy life, 
and sometimes he would forget his resolu¬ 
tion until the last hour, and sometimes he 
would get out of bed, dress, go out and 
talk to some one about his soul in order 
that he might not let one day pass without 
having definitely told at least one of his 
fellow-mortals about his need and the 
Saviour Who could meet it. 

One night Mr. Moody was going home 
from his place of business. It was very 
late, and it suddenly occurred to him that 
he had not spoken to one single person that 
day about accepting Christ. He said to 
himself: “ Here’s a day lost. I have not 
spoken to any one to-day and I shall not 
see anybody at this late hour.” But as he 
walked up the street he saw a man stand¬ 
ing under a lamp-post. The man was a 
perfect stranger to him, though it turned 
out afterwards the man knew who Mr. 
Moody was. He stepped up to this 
stranger and said: “Are you a Christian? ” 



40 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


The man replied: “ That is none of your 
business, whether I am a Christian or not. 
If you were not a sort of a preacher I 
would knock you into the gutter for your 
impertinence.” 

Mr. Moody said a few earnest words and 
passed on. The next day that man called 
upon one of Mr. Moody’s prominent busi¬ 
ness friends and said to him: “ That man 
Moody of yours over on the north side is 
doing more harm than he is good. He has 
got zeal without knowledge. He stepped 
up to me last night, a perfect stranger, and 
insulted me. He asked me if I were a 
Christian, and I told him it was none of 
his business and if he were not a sort of a 
preacher I would knock him into the gut¬ 
ter for his impertinence. He is doing 
more harm than he is good. He has got 
zeal without knowledge.” Mr. Moody’s 
friend sent for him and said: “Moody, 
you are doing more harm than you are 
good; you’ve got zeal without knowledge: 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 41 


you insulted a friend of mine on the street 
last night. You went up to him, a perfect 
stranger, and asked him if he were a 
Christian, and he tells me if you had not 
been a sort of a preacher he would have 
knocked you into the gutter for your im¬ 
pertinence. You are doing more harm 
than you are good; you have got zeal with¬ 
out knowledge.” 

Mr. Moody went out of that man’s office 
somewhat crestfallen. He wondered if he 
were not doing more harm than he was 
good, if he really had zeal without knowl¬ 
edge. (Let me say, in passing, it is far 
better to have zeal without knowledge than 
it is to have knowledge without zeal. 
Some men and women are as full of knowl¬ 
edge as an egg is of meat; they are so 
deeply versed in Bible truth that they can 
sit in criticism on the preachers and give 
the preachers pointers, but they have so 
little zeal that they do not lead one soul to 
Christ in a whole year.) Weeks passed 



42 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


by. One night Mr. Moody was in bed 
when he heard a tremendous pounding at 
his front door. He jumped out of bed 
and rushed to the door. He thought the 
house was on fire. He thought the man 
would break down the door. He opened 
the door and there stood this man. He 
said: “ Mr. Moody, I have not had a good 
night’s sleep since that night you spoke to 
me under the lamp-post, and I have come 
around at this unearthly hour of the night 
for you to tell me what I have to do to 
be saved.” 

Mr. Moody took him in and told him 
what to do to be saved. Then he accepted 
Christ, and when the Civil War broke out, 
he went to the front and laid down his life 
fighting for his country. 

Another night, Mr. Moody got home 
and had gone to bed before it occurred to 
him that he had not spoken to a soul that 
day about accepting Christ. “ Well,” he 
said to himself, “ it is no good getting up 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 43 


now; there will be nobody on the street at 
this hour of the night.” But he got up, 
dressed and went to the front door. It 
was pouring rain. “ Oh,” he said, “ there 
will be no one out in this pouring rain.” 
Just then he heard the patter of a man’s 
feet as he came down the street, holding 
an umbrella over his head. Then Mr. 
Moody darted out and rushed up to the 
man and said: “ May I share the shelter of 
your umbrella? ” “ Certainly,” the man 

replied. Then Mr. Moody said: “ Have 
you any shelter in the time of storm?” 
and preached Jesus to him. Oh, men and 
women, if we were as full of zeal for the 
salvation of souls as that, how long would 
it be before the whole country would be 
shaken by the power of a mighty, God- 
sent revival? 

One day in Chicago—the day after the 
elder Carter Harrison was shot, when his 
body was lying in state in the City Hall— 
Mr. Moody and I were riding up Ran- 



44 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


clolph Street together in a street car right 
alongside of the City Hall. The car could 
scarcely get through because of the enor¬ 
mous crowds waiting to get in and view 
the body of Mayor Harrison. As the car 
tried to push its way through the crowd, 
Mr. Moody turned to me and said: 
“ Torrey, what does this mean?” 
“ Why,” I said, “ Carter Harrison’s body 
lies there in the City Hall and these 
crowds are waiting to see it.” Then he 
said: “ This will never do, to let these 
crowds get away from us without preach¬ 
ing to them; we must talk to them. You 
go and hire Hooley’s Opera House (which 
was just opposite the City Hall) for the 
whole day.” I did so. The meetings 
began at nine o’clock in the morning, and 
we had one continuous service from that 
hour until six in the evening, to reach those 
crowds. 

Mr. Moody was a man on fire for God. 
Not only was he always “ on the job ” 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 45 


himself but he was always getting others 
to work as well. He once invited me 
down to Northfield to spend a month there 
with the schools, speaking first to one 
school and then crossing the river to the 
other. I was obliged to use the ferry a 
great deal; it was before the present bridge 
was built at that point. One day he said 
to me: “ Torrey, did you know that that 
ferryman that ferries you across every day 
was unconverted? ” He did not tell me 
to speak to him, but I knew what he 
meant. When some days later it was told 
him that the ferrvman was saved, he was 
exceedingly happy. 

Once, when walking down a certain 
street in Chicago, Mr. Moody stepped up 
to a man, a perfect stranger to him, and 
said: “ Sir, are you a Christian? ” “ You, 
mind your own business,” was the reply. 
Mr. Moody replied: “ This is my busi¬ 
ness.” The man said: “Well, then, you 
must be Moody.” Out in Chicago they 



46 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


used to call him in those early days “ Crazy 
Moody,” because day and night he was 
speaking to everybody he got a chance to 
speak to about being saved. One time he 
was going to Milwaukee, and in the seat 
that he had chosen sat a travelling man. 
Mr. Moody sat down beside him and im¬ 
mediately began to talk with him. “ Where 
are you going? ” Mr. Moody asked. 
When told the name of the town he said: 
“We will soon be there; we’ll have to get 
down to business at once. Are you 
saved? ” The man said that he was not, 
and Mr. Moody took out his Bible and 
there on the train showed him the way of 
salvation. Then he said: “Now, you 
must take Christ.” The man did; he was 
converted right there on the train. 

Most of you have heard, I presume, the 
story President Wilson used to tell about 
D. L. Moody. Ex-President Wilson said 
that he once went into a barber shop and 
took a chair next to the one in which D. L. 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 47 


Moody was sitting, though he did not know 
that Mr. Moody was there. He had not 
been in the chair very long before, as ex- 
President Wilson phrased it, he “ knew 
there was a personality in the other chair,” 
and He began to listen to the conversation 
going on, and he heard Mr. Moody tell the 
barber about the Way of Life, and 
President Wilson said, “ I have never for¬ 
gotten that scene to this day.” When 
Mr. Moody was gone, he asked the barber 

i 

who he was, and he was told that it was 

/ 

D. L. Moody, and President Wilson said: 
“ It made an impression upon me I have 
not yet forgotten.” 

On one occasion in Chicago Mr. Moody 
saw a little girl standing on the street with 
a pail in her hand. He went up to her 
and invited her to his Sunday School, tell¬ 
ing her what a pleasant place it was. She 
promised to go the following Sunday, but 
she did not do so. Mr. Moody watched 
for her for weeks, and then one day he saw 



48 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


her on the street again, at some distance 
from him. He started towards her, but she 
saw him too and started to run away. Mr. 
Moody followed her. Down she went one 
street, Mr. Moody after her, up she went 
another street, Mr. Moody after her, 
through an alley, Mr. Moody still follow¬ 
ing, out on another street, Mr. Moody 
after her, then she dashed into a saloon 
and Mr. Moody dashed after her. She 
ran out the back door and up a flight 
of stairs, Mr. Moody still following; she 
dashed into a room,, Mr. Moody following, 
and threw herself under the bed and Mr. 
Moody reached under the bed and pulled 
her out bv the foot, and led her to Christ. 

He found that her mother was a widow 
who had once seen better circumstances, 
but had gone down until now she was liv¬ 
ing over this saloon. She had several 
children. Mr. Moody led the mother and 
all the family to Christ. Several of the 
children were prominent members of the 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 49 


Moody Church until they moved away, 
and afterwards became prominent in 
churches elsewhere. This particular child, 
whom he pulled from underneath the bed, 
was, when I was the pastor of the Moody 
Church, the wife of one of the most promi¬ 
nent officers in the church. Only two or 
three years ago, as I came out of a ticket 
office in Memphis, Tennessee, a fine look¬ 
ing young man followed me. He said: 
“Are you not Dr. Torrey? ” I said, 
“Yes.” He said: “ I am so and so.” He 
was the son of this woman. He was then 
a travelling man, and an officer in the 
church where he lived. When Mr. Moody 
pulled that little child out from under the 
bed by the foot he was pulling a whole 
family into the Kingdom of God, and 
eternity alone will reveal how many suc¬ 
ceeding generations he was pulling into 
the Kingdom of God. 

D. L. Moody’s consuming passion for 
souls was not for the souls of those who 



50 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


would be helpful to him in building up his 
work here or elsewhere; his love for souls 
knew no class limitations. He was no 
respecter of persons; it might be an earl 
or a duke or it might be an ignorant col¬ 
oured boy on the street; it was all the same 
to him; there was a soul to save and he did 
what lay in his power to save that soul. 
A friend once told me that the first time 
he ever heard of Mr. Moody was when 
Mr. Reynolds of Peoria told him that he 
once found Mr. Moody sitting in one of 
the squatters’ shanties that used to be in 
that part of the city towards the lake, 
which was then called, “ The Sands,” with 
a coloured boy on his knee, a tallow candle 
in one hand and a Bible in the other, and 
Mr. Moody was spelling out the words 
(for at that time he could not read very 
well) of certain verses of Scripture, in an 
attempt to lead that ignorant coloured boy 
to Christ. Oh, young men and women 
and all Christian workers, if you and I 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 51 


were on fire for souls like that, how long 
would it be before we had a revival? Sup¬ 
pose that to-night the fire of God falls and 
fills our hearts, a burning fire that will send 
us out all over the country, and across the 
water to China, Japan, India, and Africa, 
to tell lost souls the way of salvation! 

VII. Definitely Endued With Power 

From on High 

The seventh thing that was the secret of 
why God used D. L. Moody was that, 
he had a very definite enduement with 
power from on high, a very clear and def¬ 
inite baptism with the Holy Ghost. Mr. 
Moody knew he had “ the baptism with the 
Holv Ghost,” he had no doubt about it. 
In his early days he was a great hustler, 
he had a tremendous desire to do some¬ 
thing, but he had no real power. He 
worked very largely in the energy of the 
flesh. But there were two humble Free 
Methodist women who used to come over 



52 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


to his meetings in the Y. M. C. A. One 
was “Auntie Cook ” and the other Mrs. 
Snow. (I think her name was not Snow 
at that time.) These two women would 
come to Mr. Moody at the close of his 
meetings and say: “We are praying for 
you.” Finally, Mr. Moody became some¬ 
what nettled and said to them one night: 
“ Why are you praying for me? Why 
don’t you pray for the unsaved? ” They 
replied: “We are praying that you may 
get the power.” Mr. Moody did not know 
what that meant, but he got to thinking 
about it, and then went to these women 
and said: “ I wish you would tell me what 
you mean,” and they told him about the 
definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. 
Then he asked that he might pray with 
them and not they merely pray for him. 

Auntie Cook once told me of the intense 
fervour with which Mr. Moody prayed on 
that occasion. She told me in words that 
I scarcely dare repeat, though I have never 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 53 


forgotten them. And he not only prayed 
with them, but he also prayed alone. Not 
long after, one day on his way to England, 
he was walking up Wall Street in New 
York (Mr. Moody very seldom told this 
and I almost hesitate to tell it) and in the 
midst of the bustle and hurry of that city 
his prayer was answered; the power of 
God fell upon him as he walked up the 
street and he had to hurry off to the house 
of a friend and ask that he might have a 
room by himself, and in that room he 
stayed alone for hours; and the Holy 
Ghost came upon him filling his soul with 
such joy that at last he had to ask God to 
withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot 
from very joy. He went out from that 
place with the power of the Holy Ghost 
upon him, and when he got to London 
(partly through the prayers of a bedridden 
saint in Mr. Lessey’s church) the power of 
God wrought through him mightily in 
North London and hundreds were added 



54 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


to the churches, and that was what led to 
his being invited over to the wonderful 
campaign that followed in later years. 

Time and again Mr. Moody would come 
to me and say: “ Torrey, I want you to 
preach on baptism with the Holy Ghost.” 
I do not know how many times he asked 
me to speak on that subject. Once, when 
I had been invited to preach in the Fifth 
Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York 
(invited at Mr. Moody’s suggestion; 
had it not been for his suggestion the 
invitation would never had been ex¬ 
tended to me), just before I started for 
New York, Mr. Moody drove up to my 
house and said: “ Torrey, they want you to 
preach at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
Church in New York. It is a great, big 
church, cost a million dollars to build it.” 
Then he continued: “ Torrey, I just 
want to ask one thing of you. I want to 
tell you what to preach about. You will 
preach that sermon of yours on ‘ Ten Rea- 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 55 


sons Why I Believe the Bible to be the 
Word of God ’ and your sermon on 4 The 
Baptism with the Holy Ghost.’ ” Time 
and again, when a call came to me to go 
off to some church, he would come up to 
me and say: “ Now, Torrey, be sure and 
preach on the baptism with the Holy 
Ghost.” I do not know how many times 
he said that to me. Once I asked him: 
“ Mr. Moody, don’t you think I have any 
sermons but those two: 4 Ten Reasons 
Why I Believe the Bible to be the Word 
of God ’ and 4 The Baptism with the Holy 
Ghost’ ?” 44 Never mind that,” he re¬ 

plied, 44 you give them those two sermons.” 

Once he had some teachers at North- 
field—fine men, all of them, but they did 
not believe in a definite baptism with the 
Holy Ghost for the individual. They be¬ 
lieved that every child of God was bap¬ 
tized with the Holy Ghost, and they did 
not believe in any special baptism with the 
Holy Ghost for the individual. Mr. 



56 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


Moody came to me and said: “ Torrey, 
will you come up to my house after the 
meeting to-night and I will get those men 
to come, and I want you to talk this thing 
out with them.” Of course, I very readily 
consented, and Mr. Moody and I talked 
for a long time, but they did not altogether 
see eye to eye with us. And when they 
went, Mr. Moody signalled me to remain 
for a few moments. Mr. Moody sat there 
with his chin on his breast, as he so often 
sat when he was in deep thought; then he 
looked up and said: “ Oh, why will they 
split hairs? Why don’t they see that this 
is just the one thing that they themselves 
need? They are good teachers, they are 
wonderful teachers, and I am so glad to 
have them here, but why will they not see 
that the baptism with the Holy Ghost is 
just the one touch that they themselves 
need? ” 

I shall never forget the 8th of July, 
1894, to my dying day. It was the closing 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 57 


day of the Northfield Students’ Confer¬ 
ence—the gathering of the students from 
the eastern colleges. Mr. Moody had asked 
me to preach on Saturday night and Sun¬ 
day morning on The Baptism with the 
Holy Ghost. On Saturday night I had 
spoken about “ The Baptism with the 
Holy Ghost, What it is, What it does, the 
Need of it and the Possibility of it.” On 
Sunday morning I spoke on “ The Bap¬ 
tism with the Ploly Spirit, How to Get 
It.” It was just exactly twelve o’clock 
when I finished my morning sermon, and I 
took out my watch and said: “ Mr. Moody 
has invited us all to go up on the mountain 
at three o’clock this afternoon to pray for 
the power of the Holy Spirit. It is three 
hours to three o’clock. Some of you can¬ 
not wait three hours. You do not need 
to wait. Go to your rooms, go out into 
the woods, go to your tent, go anywhere 
where you can get alone with God and 
have this matter out with Him.” At 




58 WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 


three o’clock we all gathered in front of 
Mr. Moody’s mother’s house (she was then 
still living), and then began to pass down 
the lane, through the gate, up on the 
mountainside. There were four hundred 
and fifty-six of us in all; I know the num¬ 
ber because Paul Moody counted us as we 
passed through the gate. 

After a while Mr. Moody said: “ I don’t 
think we need to go any further; let us sit 
down here.” We sat down on stumps and 
logs and on the ground. Mr. Moody said: 
“ Have any of you students anything to 
say? ” I think about seventy-five of them 
arose, one after the other, and said: “ Mr. 
Moody, I could not wait till three o’clock; 
I have been alone with God since the morn¬ 
ing service, and I believe I have a right 
to say that I have been baptized with the 
Holy Spirit.” When these testimonies 
were over, Mr. Moody said: “ Young men, 
I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t 
kneel down here right now and ask God 



WHY GOD USED D. L. MOODY 59 


that the Holy Ghost may fall upon us just 
as definitely as He fell upon the apostles 
on the Day of Pentecost. Let us pray.” 
And we did pray, there on the mountain¬ 
side. As we had gone up the mountain¬ 
side heav}^ clouds had been gathering, and 
just as we began to pray those clouds 
broke and the rain-drops began to fall 
through the overhanging pines. But there 
was another cloud that had been gathering 
over Northfield for ten days, a cloud big 
with the mercy and grace and power of 
God, and as we began to pray our prayers 
seemed to pierce that cloud and the Holy 
Ghost fell upon us. Men and women, 
that is what we all need—the Baptism with 
the Holy Ghost. 


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